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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Published: 25 December 2007(GMT+10)

Republished: 25 December 2011(GMT+10)

We at CMI wish all our readers and supporters a safe and blessed Christmas and New
Year festive season. But what does CMI have to do with Christmas? How does Genesis
relate to a birthday?

The whole point is that the One whose birth is celebrated at Christmas was none
other than the One who brought the whole universe into existence! Our Creator took
on the nature of one of His creatures, a helpless infant. Think about the movie
producers Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan: in their movies, they would make
an entrance in the movies they created.

But Christmas is no movie: it happened in history: God, the Creator, became
flesh, the Incarnation. World leader in sickle cell anemia research, Dr
Felix Konotey-Ahulu (left), in an interview in Creation
magazine, pointed out the significance:

‘The baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the Creator of the world!
See John 1:1–5, especially v. 3: “All
things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
The world, you see, is no cosmic accident. This world was created by the
Triune God, and through this Lord Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem.’

Right back in the early days of the Christian Church, Melito,
Bishop of Sardis, gave an amazing Passover sermon in AD
~170 that expresses that astounding event (see below).

He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
The Sovereign is insulted.
God is murdered.
The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
This is the One who made the heavens and the earth,
and formed mankind in the beginning,
The One proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets,
The One enfleshed in a virgin,
The One hanged on a tree,
The One buried in the earth,
The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven,
The One sitting at the right hand of the Father,
The One having all authority to judge and save,
Through Whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
This One is ‘the Alpha and the Omega’,
This One is ‘the beginning and the end’
The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
This One is the Christ.
This One is the King.
This One is Jesus.
This One is the Leader.
This One is the Lord.
This One is the One who rose from the dead.
This One is the One sitting on the right hand of the Father.
He bears the Father and is borne by the Father.
‘To him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.’

Jesus: the pre-existent one; the Word

The baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the Creator of the world! See
John 1:1–5, especially v. 3: ‘All things were
made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.’

At Christmas, churches often read the early chapters of the Gospels. It is the Gospel
of John which goes back the furthest. While Matthew and Luke tell us about the conception
and birth of the One, John 1 goes back way further to before He was conceived.
In fact, it reaches back even further than Genesis, as shown above. Genesis 1 is the account of the creation of the space-time
universe, but John 1 tells us that Jesus and the Father existed before
creation, before time, in eternity past. Indeed, as above, Genesis 1:1 really takes over at John 1:3.

John calls Jesus the ‘Word’, or in Greek, the logos. Why? This
comes from the Jewish concept of the memra. This teaching can be found
in the Targums, Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament.1 Where the Old Testament says something is done by
God, the Targums often said it was done by the memra of God. The Rabbis
never tried to explain the paradox, because the OT also sometimes describes several
personages simultaneously as the LORD (YHWH) who is
one (e.g. Genesis 19:24, Isaiah 48:16). They taught six things about this memra,
and John 1 identifies Jesus of Nazareth as the embodiment of
all aspects of the memra:2

John 1 reaches back even further than Genesis ….
Genesis 1 is the account of the creation of the space-time
universe, but John 1 tells us that Jesus and the Father existed before
creation, before time, in eternity past. … Genesis 1:1 really takes over at John 1:3.

Means by which God became visible (called a theophany)

Means by which He made His covenants

The Law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
(John 1:17).

Illustration from www.istockphoto.com

Was Jesus born on Christmas day?

CMI is not claiming that Jesus was born on 25 December. Fact is, we don’t
know which day He arrived. But a common argument against 25 December is that shepherds
would not have been watching their flocks by night in December because it would
be too cold. But those who make that claim clearly have never been to Bethlehem.
Just because shepherds in Europe and North America are indoors in December, it doesn’t
follow that shepherds in Bethlehem are also indoors. They are indeed to be found
watching their flocks by night.2 Indeed, it’s a very good time, because the heavy winter rains make the grass especially lush.

The proto-Gospel of Genesis 3:15: God would come as a seed of a woman

After Adam and Eve fell into sin, God pronounced judgment on them. But along with
judgment, God provided an escape. He made this intriguing promise to Eve in Genesis
3:15 (addressing the serpent):

‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and
between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his
heel.’

Many have interpreted the seed in this verse as the Messiah, including the Jewish
Targums, hence the Talmudic expression ‘heels of the Messiah’.3 This verse hints at the Virginal
Conception prophesied in Isaiah 7:14, as the Messiah is called the seed of the woman,
contrary to the normal biblical practice of referring to the father rather than
the mother of a child (cf. Genesis chapters 5 and 11,
1 Chr. chapters 1–9). The early church called this passage the Protevangelion, the first mention of
the Gospel in the Bible.

But there was a very interesting sequel. When Eve bore Cain, she said something
so apparently out of the ordinary that many Bible translators can’t believe
she said it. The Hebrew literally says, ‘I have gotten a man: the LORD
(YHWH)’, or ‘I have received a man, namely Jehovah’, as Martin
Luther put it.4 The Hebrew
Christian scholar Dr Arnold Fruchtenbaum believes that Eve’s actual statement
shows that she understood that the seed would be both God and man, but she was grossly
mistaken in believing that Cain was the seed in question.5,6 Rather, the seed of the woman
would be born about 4000 years later, to the virgin Mary in Bethlehem. I.e. Eve’s
theology was accurate; it was only her application that was faulty. See
below for Fruchtenbaum’s support for this.

Eve and the God-Man

Fruchtenbaum supports the interpretation referred to in the main text (that Eve
believed she was giving birth to the promised divine seed) by pointing out that
the word YHWH is preceded by the untranslated accusative particle את
(et), which marks the object of the verb, in this case ‘gotten’.7Genesis 4:1 reads, ‘And Adam knew Eve his wife;
and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man: the LORD
(YHWH/Yahweh/Jehovah).’ Compare the last few words of this, and the Hebrew,
with the account of Abel’s birth in the next verse:

‘ … and said, I have gotten a man: YHWH’וַתּאמֶר קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת־יהוה׃‘And she again bare his brother: Abel.’וַתּסֶף לָלֶדֶת אֶת־אָחִיו אֶת־הָבֶל

There is no doubt that brother and Abel are one and the same. But the same exact
Hebrew construction implies that likewise, man and the LORD
were one and the same.

The Midrash Rabbah also cites Rabbi Akiba, admitting that the Hebrew construction
would seem to imply that Eve thought she was begetting YHWH, which created interpretive
difficulties for them, so the translation ‘with the help of the Lord’
is required8—as
the NASB also renders it.

The Jerusalem Targum reads: ‘I have gotten a man: the angel of Jehovah’,
while the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan says: I have gotten for a man the angel
of Jehovah’.9
The Targums often substituted ‘Angel of God’ or ‘Word of God’
for ‘God’.

Why did Jesus have to be born? The Genesis connection

Luke traces Jesus’ human lineage from Mary all the way back up to Adam. There
is not the slightest hint of a break showing where historical characters end and
mythical figures begin—all are treated as equally historical; none are mythical.

In chapter 3 of his Gospel, Luke traces Jesus’ human lineage from Mary all
the way back up to Adam. There is not the slightest hint of a break showing where
historical characters end and mythical figures begin—all are treated as equally
historical; none are mythical. This includes Adam himself, who was created directly
by God, not through a long line of ape-like ancestors or pond scum (Luke 3:38).

So why is it so important that Jesus, the ‘last Adam’ is a descendant
of a real first man, Adam (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:45)? This common descent from a real Adam
is also vital for the Atonement. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah
as literally the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer’, i.e. one who is related by blood
to those he redeems (Isaiah 59:20, which uses the same Hebrew word
גואל (gôēl) as is used
to describe Boaz in relation to Ruth). The book of Hebrews also explains how Jesus
took upon Himself the nature of a man to save mankind, but not angels (Hebrews 2:11–18). So only Adam’s descendants
can be saved, because only thus can they be related by blood to the Last Adam.

So if anyone thinks that Genesis history doesn’t matter, then ask how they
should preach to the Australian Aborigines. If they have really been here for 40,000
years (according to carbon-14 dating that old-earthers accept), then how could they
come from Adam, and how could they be related to Christ, so how can they be saved?
Indeed, a compromising clergyman of Darwin’s day, Charles
Kingsley, claimed that Aborigines had not evolved enough to preach the gospel
to them!

Grinches who steal Christmas

Every Christmas season, we see assorted misotheists offended by nativity scenes
and demanding their removal. Ironically, when it comes to pornography, many of these
same misotheists tell objectors, ‘just look the other way’ or ‘change
the channel’. And instead of our Christmas greeting at the top, some (with
tongue firmly in cheek) advised us to send the following:

Holiday Greetings to Everyone

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally
conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration
of the winter/summer solstice holiday, practised with the most enjoyable traditions
of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the
religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to
practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful,
personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the
generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars
of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our
country great (not to imply that it is necessarily greater than any other country)
and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious
faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable
with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher
to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where
prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish
is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings
for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting,
whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance
of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer:

No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number
of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

‘MP Mark Pritchard has warned the government not to ‘surrender’
the UK’s Christian heritage and Community cohesion minister Parmjit Dhanda,
a Sikh, agrees.

‘Dhanda, claiming the government admires the work of faith-based groups said:

“I fully recognize the full historical and cultural significance [of Christianity]
in our country. We should all be aware of that and celebrate that. The Christian
tradition has had a significant impact on the way these freedoms have been shaped.”

‘According to a BBC report, during a current debate, Pritchard said most Christians
in the U.K. feel like they are not getting a fair hearing, adding that it was ‘time
for the dragon of political correctness to be slain.’

‘He told the BBC’s “Have Your Say” that he did not want
to “purge” the UK of its Christian heritage. …

Prof Dawkins, who has frequently spoken out against creationism and religious fundamentalism,
replied:

“I’m not one of those who wants to stop Christian traditions. This is
historically a Christian country. I’m a cultural Christian in the same way
many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims.

“So, yes, I like singing carols along with everybody else. I’m not one
of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.

“If there’s any threat these sorts of things, I think you will find
it comes from rival religions and not from atheists.”’

But as shown above, it really is often atheists who want to expunge all
traces of Christianity from society. Also, the Daily Telegraph reported in
School nativity plays under threat:

Terence Copley, Professor of Educational Studies at Oxford University, said the
idea that the nativity could offend other faiths was ‘crazy’.

‘I have never met a single Jew, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist who has objected
to the commemoration and celebration of the birth of Jesus,’ he said. ‘In
Islam, he is a prophet and his birth is described in the Koran. It is not other
religions that are pushing for this at all.

‘If we avoid Christmas we are pandering to a secular minority and allowing
the event to become all about commercialism, presents and self-indulgence.

‘There’s nothing wrong with a bit of self-indulgence but if we don’t
teach about Christmas and deal with it confidently, not just in RE, we are failing
in our duty as educators.’

Furthermore, atheists are the ones at the forefront of opposition whose birth we
celebrate.

References

Aramaic paraphrases of the OT originating in the last few
centuries BC, and committed to writing about AD 500. See F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments,
p. 133, Fleming H. Revell Co., Westwood, Revelation Ed. 1963. Return
to Text.

Fruchtenbaum, A., The life of Christ from a Jewish Perspective,
(audio) Ariel Ministries, 22 July 2003. Return to Text.

Monday, December 24, 2012

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God"

“So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was
lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word
concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard
it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured
up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds
returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard
and seen, which were just as they had been told.”Luke 2:16-20NIV

Blogging will resume after Christmas. Hope you all love and treasure your family and friends!Don't read this part below today. Come back later. It is about Sandy Hook and grief and loss. SANDY HOOKSandy Hook was something I took personally. I am thankful that I have not experienced the loss of a child. But two of my children had a total of fourteen invasive surgeries, some of which were considered dangerous and one of which had a 20% success rate if all went exactly right. I've spent many hours in hospital waiting rooms, along with others also waiting to see if their loved ones would live through the experience. Parents not knowing if the people emerging from those swinging doors would bring news of life or death. I also spent many hours visiting the ICU as my child was plugged into various machines and drips, with contacts and needles and lines stuck all over her, surrounded by other babies, nurses coming in and out, and the background of beeps and boops noisily reporting on the life or death of the babies in their clear plastic cribs. They would become coffins for some. We would scrub up and get masks and gloves on to come in and just stare at our daughter. Now and then one of the baby monitoring devices would issue a warning and we would be sent out as nurses and doctors hurried to the baby in danger. Sometimes that space would be vacant the next day, mute testimony to death, and sometimes we would have seen the parent(s) of that child just a day or a week beforehand, full of both fear and hope. We knew they had lost their child.That same daughter had a complete back reconstruction using prosthetic devices and cadaver bone to straighten a dangerously curving spine. She had open heart surgery and other heart-related surgeries. A son had multiple operations on his legs, often incredibly painful, the kind of thing single-digit midgets should not have to deal with. Imagine having a metal structure that goes into your bone and having to turn a crank each day to pull the bone apart every day? They did that to him twice and once they ran out of morphine injectors so that when he awoke from surgery, he had no pain meds. I did threaten to do bodily harm to the doctor and he ran to find one for my child. Once we had a kidnapping attempt that thankfully was thwarted. For several hours I wondered if a serial killer had nabbed one of my girls? Thank God I realized she was missing quickly and with the help of the Sheriff's people found her unharmed and let them deal with the culprit.

Once a babysitter left two of my children to fend for themselves in the center of a town celebrating an Octoberfest. I knew the fear and dread of possible loss as I called every police agency I could think of and called on friends to help me search the area, looking for my two small boys. I finally found them sitting out on a graveled parking lot, having been denied shade and water by a vendor who was sitting comfortably in an office watching the lot and taking tickets to enter the exhibit. Whoever he was, he closed for the day and left my boys sitting there alone and desperately in need of water but otherwise unharmed.So when the events of Sandy Hook were first making news, my heart went out to every parent because I knew what they were dealing with - would I ever see my child alive again? How could I deal with losing him or her? The grief would be so unbearable. Not knowing is almost as bad as finding out you have lost your child. If you have not experienced this, I hope you never do, because it is excruciating emotional pain.

Grief is impossible to throw away. You have to go through so many stages - disbelief, denial, rage, sorrow and depression, acceptance and then the courage to go on despite the pain. I've not lost a child but my father died way too soon and his death hurt me terribly. I heard his voice calling my name in my head off and on for years but I knew he wasn't there. Even though I knew he was a believer and should be in Heaven he wasn't here with me, he didn't even see five of his six grandkids or any of his great-grandchildren. He missed out on so much and so did my children, not even knowing him.

Evil politicians will seek to take advantage of the murders to take guns away from citizens. Pontification by elitists will fill the airwaves. But it is the society in which we live which has devalued human life and the very people who want to take your guns believe you have no intrinsic value other than your vote. There is a Father in Heaven who actually cares about every single person on this planet. Jesus Christ came to live for you and die for you, suffer for you and bear the burdens you could never bear. Christmas is about Him and what He did, not about football and presents and holiday sales events. You were planned by God to have life, you were no accident. May you come to know this and share the joy of relationship with God that can sustain you even in the worst times.

I've been in terrible accidents and come close to death multiple times. Much of my body has been broken and put back together. But always I have the joy of knowing Christ. There is nothing I could give you that would exceed the value of knowing God..

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Those of you who pray, pray for the families of Sandy Hook! The horror of losing a precious child, a loved one, a friend compounded by the sheer number of victims and the utter senselessness of it all is beyond true comprehension for those of us who are not experiencing their grief.

Nonetheless I will begin the counter-attack against idiots by pointing out that they are part of the problem rather than the solution. Atheistic Humanism has taken the divine value of a human life and replaced it with the concept that we are all cosmic accidents with no purpose, value or permanence. Darwinists, you have created this society and you own it!

The Sandy Hook tragedy will doubtless cause the brainless to seek to ban legal gun sales. They will not see the obvious connections to the moral decay of the nation - the Supreme Court banned school prayer in 1962 and legalized abortion in 1973. Did you know the son of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, who was the woman behind the case that struck down school prayers is now fighting to see prayer returned to schools? Did you know that the woman who was named "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade is now actively seeking the end of baby murdering aka abortion?

Furthermore, the Obama Administration has let funds to protect schools from such attacks lapse - See this article - Schools should have one guarded access to the grounds during the school day and we probably should consider having one person armed and trained to disarm or kill anyone who makes an attempt at such an attack in every school in America.

Remember that the Columbine killers believed in evolution? It is time to see where the blame actually lies for the increase in such killings should be placed - squarely at the feet of the ruling paradigm of Darwinism,which denies that God has created all things, especially man, and thereby causes those who logically follow such thinking conclude that human life has no special meaning or purpose or eternal value. Ideas have consequences. Consider this article posted after a previous school massacre:

The Finnish high school tragedy once again shows that ideas have consequences

Published: 9 November 2007; Republished 16 September 2009(GMT+10)

Image by Mysid wikipedia.com

Within just a few hours of this week’s Finnish high school shooting (in which eight people plus the killer died),1,2,3
as the tragic details were relayed by news agencies around the
world, it was soon apparent that there was already one clear
difference between this tragedy and the one at an American high
school eight years earlier.

On the day of the Columbine high
school shooting massacre in 1999, in which teenagers Eric Harris and
Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before turning their
guns on themselves, people were asking ‘How could they do such a thing?’
But with both Harris and Klebold now dead, it took investigators
some time to get an insight into the mindset of the killers, as they
sifted through the evidence. (One of the most telling pieces of
evidence, as it turned out, was the inscription ‘Natural Selection’
on the T-shirt worn by one of the killers on the day of the
massacre.)

In grim contrast, investigators of the Finnish
tragedy knew within hours what had been on the mind of the
suicide-murderer Pekka-Eric Auvinen in the lead-up to his shooting
spree, courtesy of his home-made video clips he’d posted on the
video-sharing website YouTube.

Overwhelmingly, Auvinen’s
statements in his YouTube contribution (and other blogs on the
internet) reveal his belief (that is, what he believed prior
to his death) that there is no Creator God, and therefore there is no
ultimate purpose to our existence. Note that at the root of Auvinen’s
views is the presupposition that evolution is true:4,5

‘What is the best thing in life? It ends. Well I
guess there are some other great things, worth living for, but
sometimes you lose them or don’t get them.’

‘Trust no one … and rely on your instincts.’

‘I’m the dictator of my own life.’

‘HUMANITY IS OVERRATED!’

‘Human
life is not sacred. Humans are just a species among other animals and
world does not exist only for humans. Death is not a tragedy, it
happens in nature all the time between all species. Not all human
lives are important or worth saving. Sometimes I feel like no
one is really worth [sic] of life at all.’

‘Today
the process of natural selection is totally misguided. Modern human
race has not only betrayed its ancestors, but the future generations
too.’

‘It’s time to put NATURAL SELECTION & SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST back on track!’

‘I
cannot say that I am of the same race as this miserable, arrogant and
selfish human race. No! I have evolved a step higher.’

‘I
am prepared to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural selector,
will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of the human race
and failures of natural selection.’

‘The faster the
human race is wiped out from this planet, the better … no one
should be left alive. No mercy for the scum of earth.’

‘I am the law, judge and executioner. There is no higher authority than me.’

All
of Auvinen’s statements above derive from the idea that everything just
came into existence by itself—that everything just evolved. It
turned out that the thinking of the Columbine killers was similarly
founded on that idea. That’s the idea more formally known as
‘evolutionary theory’—the doctrine taught in our schools and universities throughout the world.

And as the shootings in Finland and Columbine show, the world is reaping the consequences.

What a person believes does matter

‘I have evolved a step higher.’—Pekka-Eric Auvinen

This latest tragedy is surely yet another ‘wake-up call’ to those
who say that the creation/evolution ‘controversy’ is only of academic
interest. As the high school shootings in Finland and at Columbine
demonstrate, what a person believes about origins can be
devastatingly destructive—not just to their own life, but the lives
of people around them.

From childhood, Harris, Klebold and
Auvinen had been taught that man is just an animal and that death and
violence are a natural part of life. In fact, from an evolutionary
perspective, one could argue that death is a good thing, for without
the selection pressure of death removing the weak, man would not have
evolved. So death and violence become, in the eyes of those willing
to logically apply Darwinian principles to the real world, natural
evolutionary mechanisms that have operated with chance processes over
millions of years to produce today’s life-forms—including man.

Thus by teaching evolutionary theory at schools and universities,
society is basically giving a student all the ‘programming’ he needs
to justify, in his own mind, ‘helping evolution along’—i.e. removing
certain individuals from the gene pool. Sometimes those ‘certain
individuals’ may even include the student himself. One young
Australian man told a national forum on the problem of depression in society that:

‘…
I think that some people may have an inability to cope, and maybe
this might sound a bit extreme, but that might be Darwinian theory, the
Darwin theory of survival of the fittest. Maybe some of us aren’t
meant to survive, maybe some of us are meant to kill ourselves …’

and:

‘There’s
too many people in the world as it is. Maybe it is survival of the
fittest, maybe some of us are meant to just give up, and maybe that
would help the species.’6

These comments echo Auvinen’s views. And both these individuals
demonstrate by their statements that the potential influence of what
is taught in the classroom is not confined to what a student writes
on an examination paper but can have on-going effects.

Putting it in context of the school shootings, the teaching of
evolutionary theory to young people at a Finnish high school and at
Columbine High School sufficiently impacted the lives of three
students that it has utterly disrupted, to varying degrees and
varying lengths of time, the lives of parents, other students, teachers,
police, ambulance and hospital staff, pastors and grief counsellors,
and even national government leaders. So much for the notion that
the creation/evolution debate is ‘only of academic interest’! And of
course the shootings didn’t just disrupt lives, they directly destroyed (i.e. cut short) the lives of 24 people in all.

Even from a purely practical viewpoint, is that really the sort of
ideology a society would want to teach to its children, now that the
consequences are evident for all to see?

The antidote

As we pointed out after the Columbine massacre,
the only way to de-fuse the evolutionary ‘walking time-bombs’ in our
societies is to teach the true account of our origins, found in the
Bible. That enables young (and old) people to understand that death
is not a ‘natural evolutionary mechanism’ but a consequence
of sin. And they can also understand that God so loved the world that
he provided a ‘rescue package’, in the form of His Son, Jesus
Christ, who died for our sins (see Good News!).
The Bible makes it clear that we are not rearranged pond scum but
descendants of the first man and woman, made in the image of God, and
that through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour we can know that our
lives have meaning—and purpose.

Readers’ comments

Angela E., South Africa, 24 January 2010

Our
World-Heritage “Cradle of Humankind” exhibition 40 km north-west of
Johannesburg presents evolution as fact. I shudder to think of the
consequences. The South African government in the bad old days said
people with dark skin, broad foreheads and flat noses were inferior.
Now, just as we thought we were recovering from that hateful legacy, the
“new” government is providing evolutionary “proof” (http://www.maropeng.co.za/index.php/calendar/entry/evolution_exhibition/)
“Evolution is new in the local school curriculum and for many it’s
controversial, yet the evidence for it is solid and unequivocal.”

Rob G., Canada, 10 February 2010

Wow ummm… What?

I
agree that this murder is, of course, a terrible thing. Just being a
bit better for the overall species(Keep in mind, ridiculously marginal)
but this makes many people miserable. The message should be “It’s best
to move on from death” rather than “Kill ‘em all.”

That being
said, this artical is so biased it’s scary… Evolution is a time bomb?
The “true” origins of Earth as God and The Bible teach it? I was linked
here from conservapedia, so I shouldn’t expect much, but need I link you
to Religiously affiliated murders? Or suicides? Or WARS?

Trevor S., United States, 2 June 2010

Rob
hit the nail on the head. Also, when you say, "History shows that
people with that in mind (i.e. those who love the Lord with all their
mind, as per Matthew 22:37),
do not have a mind to become a killer" well, doesnt that mean they dont
have amind of their own at all? So theoretically, to prevent bloodshed
of any kind, we need to have a hive mind… Im glad you found this
incident as a way to push YOUR ideas and beliefs on people as facts. I
dont need an invisible avenger in the sky to let me know what is right
and what is wrong. Good luck and I hope you find a fulfilling life Dave.

David Catchpoole responds

Thanks
Trevor for your well-wishes. And good on you for taking the time to
read the article, even though it seems it doesn’t sit easily with your
worldview. (And note that I wasn’t “pushing” this article on to you—you
apparently came to our website and read it out of your own free will?)

In
addition, I’m very glad that in your case you apparently don’t need “an
invisible avenger in the sky” to moderate your behaviour. What a shame
that didn’t apply to the Finnish murderer, among others.

The
thing is, the young killer did not get these ideas by himself or in a
void or even from the Bible, which would reject such actions. The ideas
came from his evolution classes, that is, his education.

Josef L., United States, 19 July 2011

What
Rob G. fails to understand is that a biblical creationist who would
murder or commit suicide is acting inconsistently with the creationist’s
worldview. On the other hand, an evolutionist who kills those he feels
isn’t fit, is acting consistently with the evolutionist’s worldview.

God did it in six
days and rested on the seventh. Seems like a good model to follow … CMI
provides new articles 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Will you consider a
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

In classifying the past, historians interpret the objects they find
in line with the dogmatic evolutionary theory. The period during which
bronze artifacts were manufactured they call the Bronze Age, and suggest
that iron began being used much more recently—based on their claim that
in the most ancient civilizations, metals were unknown.

Iron, steel and many other metals quickly oxidize and decay, much
faster than stone does. Some metals such as bronze, which oxidize with
much greater difficulty, may survive for longer than others. It is
therefore perfectly natural that excavated objects made of bronze should
be older and those of iron of a much more recent date. In addition,
it’s not logical to maintain that any society able to produce bronze was
unaware of iron, that a society with the technical knowledge to produce
bronze did not use any other metals.

Bronze is obtained by adding tin, arsenic and antimony, with a small
quantity of zinc, to copper. Anyone who creates bronze must have a
working knowledge of such chemical elements as copper, tin, arsenic,
zinc and antimony, know at what temperatures these are to be melted, and
possess a kiln in which to melt and combine them. Without all this
knowledge, it will be very difficult to produce a successful alloy.

To begin with, copper ore is found in old, hard
rocks in powder or crystalline form (which is also referred to as
“native copper”). A society that uses copper must first possess a level
of knowledge to identify it in powder form in these rocks. It must then
construct a mine to extract the copper, remove it, and carry it to the
surface. It is clear that these things cannot be done using stone and
wooden tools.
Copper ore must be introduced to red-hot flame in order for it to
liquefy. The temperature needed to melt and refine copper is 1,984°F.
There also needs to be a device or bellows to ensure a steady flow of
air to the fire. Any society working with copper must construct a kiln
able to produce such high heat and also make such equipment as crucibles
and tongs for use with the furnace.

This is a brief summary of the technical infrastructure needed to
work copper—which by itself, is too soft a metal to hold a sharp edge
for long. Producing harder bronze by adding tin, zinc and other elements
to copper is even more sophisticated, because every metal requires
different processes. All these facts show that communities engaged in
mining, producing alloys and metal-working must have possessed detailed
knowledge. It is neither logical nor consistent to claim that people
with such comprehensive knowledge would never have discovered iron.

On the contrary, archaeological discoveries show that the
evolutionist claim that metal was unknown and not used in very ancient
societies is untrue. Proof includes such findings as the remains of a
ancient metallic spheres, an iron pot in supposed 300 million years old
coal, fragments of textiles on clay dated to 27,000 years ago, and
traces of metals such as magnesium and platinum, successfully melted in
Europe only a few hundred years ago, in remains dating back a thousand
years.

The London Artifact

London
Artifact was found near London, Texas in Kimble County. The metal
hammerhead is approximately six inches long with a nominal diameter of
one inch. This seems somewhat small for a gross pounding instrument,
suggesting that this tool was meant for fine work or soft metal.

The site is part of a large geographical zone called the Edwards
Plateau. It primarily consists of Cretaceous rock. In June of 1934,
Max Hahn discovered a rock, sitting loose on a rock ledge beside a
waterfall outside London, Texas. Noticing that this weathered rock had
wood protruding from it, he and family members cracked it open with a
hammer and chisel, exposing the hammerhead to the light of day for the
first time since the stone formed around it. To verify that the hammer
was made of metal, they cut into one of the beveled sides with a file.
In the resulting nick, bright, shiny iron was exposed. The bright metal
in the nick is still there, with no detectable corrosion.

The density of the iron shows the interior metal to be very pure,
with no bubbles. Modern industry cannot consistently produce iron
castings with this quality, as evidenced by test results that show
bubbles and density variations that have caused pump and valve bodies to
break. The handle eye is oval shaped, and roughly 1″x1/2″. The density
is about 10% greater near the surface. The white areas are most dense,
and the dark areas are least dense. As previously stated, a file cut
was made in one of the side edges in 1934, and has remained
corrosion-free in the sixty-plus years since the artifact was
discovered. In fact, the quality of the iron equals or exceedsthe
quality of any iron found in the modern world. The composition
(chlorine fabricated with metallic iron) remains a puzzling enigma.
The wooden handle appears to have been broken off, then worn smooth
where it protruded from the rock concretion. The dark area in the wood
is where it has been coalified.

Iron Cup in Coal

Frank Kennard was working in the Municiple Electric Plant in Thomas
Oklahomo. He found a chunk of coal to large to use and broke it with a
sledge hammer. The pot fell out of the coal leaving an impression of the
pot in the coal. Jim Stull, a co-worker, witnessed the event. He traced
the coal back to the Wilburton mine of Oklahoma. On November 27, 1948
Frank wrote signed affidavit affirming to the facts of the discovery.

The Coal deposits of the Oklahoma mine are dated at suppposedly 312
million years old. The only way that this pot could have been found in
the coal is if it was deposited there before the coal formed. Other
human artifacts have been found in the same and other coal mines of
Oklahoma. Some of these were miles below the surface. Other coal
deposits have also produced man made artifacts around the world.

Brass Bell in Coal

In 1944, as a ten year old boy, Newton Anderson dropped a lump of
coal in his basement and found that it contained this bell inside. The
bituminous coal that was mined near his house in Upshur County West
Virginia is supposed to be about 300 million years old! What is a brass
bell with an iron clapper doing in coal ascribed to the Carboniferous
Period? According to Norm Sharbaugh’s book Ammunition (which includes several “coal anecdotes”) the bell is an antediluvian artifact.

The Institute for Creation Research had the bell submitted to the lab
at the University of Oklahoma. According to the Institute, the bell was
delivered for analysis by the nuclear activation method.The nuclear
activation analysis revealed that the bell contains a strange mix of
metals, different from any known modern alloy, with an unusual mixture
including copper, zinc, tin, arsenic, iodine, and selenium. While it is
brass, it is not the brass alloy that has been used by our civilization
since at least the rise of the Sumerian culture some six thousand years
ago.

Genesis 4:22 states that Tubal-Cain was “an instructor of every
artificer in brass and iron…” Perhaps when his civilization came to an
end in the flood, this bell was buried with a mass of vegetation that
became coal and ended up thousands of years later in Newt Anderson’s
coal bin. The bell was prominently featured in the 1992 CBS docudrama
production called Ancient Secrets of the Bible and is now part
of the Genesis Park collection. Later on, Newton Anderson spent a great
deal of time researching the demon atop the bell. He discovered
similarities to the Babylonian Southwest Wind Demon and the Hindu deity
Garuda. Garuda is sometimes depicted on top of bells, as is the Egyptian
Isis. Demonic worship seems to take on similar forms in various
cultures (like the Venus figurines from disparate lost cultures and the
ancient fascination with pyramids), which doesn’t necessitate that they
were culturally related. At our request, Mr. Anderson was examined by an
expert polygraph specialist to further validate his claims.

Man vs. Archaeology has examined & studied these artifacts first
hand; the London Artifact, the iron cup in coal, and the brass bell in
coal. These scattered remains totally demolish the Rough Stone Age,
Polished Stone Age, Bronze and Iron Age classifications. But a large
part of these findings, after appearing in many scientific publications,
have either been ignored by evolutionist scientists or else hidden away
in museum basements. Unbelievable evolutionist tales have been
presented as the history of mankind, instead of the true historical
facts.

One
of the clearest areas of human activity where God has “confounded the
wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27) and “made wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7) is in
the area of creation evidence. This is especially true in the list of
tangible artifacts of evidence that I refer to as the “Creation X-Files”
owned by the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas. The official
academic position held by the secular establishment, and even by most
religious institutions, is that of evolutionary development over vast
periods of time.

Secular
scientist John Little admitted that “Evolution is the creation myth of
our age…A belief in evolution is a religion in itself.”[1]

In his introduction to a special edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species
evolutionist L.H. Matthews wrote: “Most biologist accept it (ie.
Evolution) as though it were a proven fact, although this conviction
rests upon circumstantial evidence, it forms a satisfactory faith on
which to base our interpretation of nature.”[2]

The “Creation X-Files” dispels the myth of evolution and exposes it to be a religion devoid of factual basis.

Evidence:

1. “…This
Mississippi Caddo Indian terra cotta dates to circa 1200 A.D., and
features a handle in the form of a baby dinosaur. The details are so
realistic that the markers of the pottery must have seen living
dinosaurs in order to produce such features.

Dinosaur Footprint…The sedimentary rock layer has been dated at 110 million years by evolutionary assignment, yet two separate laboratories have confirmed the compression features under each footprint, using Spiral CT scan techniques. Evolutionary Theory separates these life forms by 109 of the 110 million years. Evolution is hereby exposed to be in profound error.

CT
scans revealed both footprints to be genuine. This artifact was removed
from the Park Ledge in the mid-1950’s before it was against the law to
do so. Remnants of six human footprints still remain on the ledge.
Numerous dinosaur footprints can be seen today in the immediate
vicinity. Evolution is once again falsified.

5.
The “London Artifact”; an iron hammer deposited in “Early Cretaceous”
rock near Texas. Discovered by Frank and Emma Hahn.London,

This
rock is dated according to the evolutionary timescale at 140 million
years old, yet this man-made artifact contains the compound FeO (iron
oxide) on the surface, and a portion of the handle is coalified. The
events of Noah’s Flood explain these details far better than can be
supported by evolution.

6. “Permian-Triassic” rock containing the A.M. Coffee Human Footprint…according
to evolution, human footprints did not evolve until a few hundred
thousand years ago, yet this rock is dated at 230 million years. Nine
eight-inch footprints in the rock series were discovered by Mr. Coffee. A
child’s footprint can be seen nearby. This evidence is beginning to
confound the wisest evolutionist.

7. “Pennsylvania Carboniferous” coal containing an Iron Pot discovered by Frank Canard in Oklahoma. The
coal from which the pot was extracted is dated evolutionary at 395
million years. The manmade artifact still has residue of coal adhering
to the inside bottom. If the pot is “modern” and intruded into the
massive sedimentary seam of coal, then no fossil or artifact found in
sedimentary deposits can be designated “ancient” in age. If the pot is
as old as the coal seam, then the Global Deluge explains how it got
there.

8. “Cambrian” Slate Stone containing the Meister Print, a human sandal print with embedded trilobite fossils. The embedded trilobites have been identified as Elrethia gengi, and are assigned an evolutionary age of 550 million years. The sandal print still bears depressions of the stitching along the sides. Wear on the outside of the heal area is consistent with human locomotion. This places man at the bottom
of the “Geologic Column”, and compresses the time factor to recent
co-habitation of all living creatures, from trilobites to man.

Conclusion…

A twenty-foot “Wall of Truth” (see below) has been erected at the Creation Evidence Museum (http://creationevidence.org)
featuring replicas of these artifacts in their appropriate places of
discovery. The actual artifacts are on display in the center of the
museum. Evidence of human artifacts deposited throughout the Geologic
Column destroys any hope of evolutionary interpretation. Creation truth
has confounded the “wise” and made “wise” the simple.

[2] L.H. Matthews, Introduction to 1971 edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species

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The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.Francis Maitland Balfour

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The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.Francis Maitland Balfour